Türkiye's approval of Sweden's NATO bid hinges on F-16 deal: experts

A Turkish parliamentary committee's consent to Sweden's NATO bid is a "goodwill gesture," but Ankara is likely to wait for progress in its request to buy F-16 jets from the United States for a full ratification, experts have said, reported Xinhua.

The Turkish parliament's foreign affairs committee has greenlighted during a meeting on Tuesday the Scandinavian country's membership to the Western military alliance.

In the first meeting in mid-November, the panel failed to make any decisions.

NATO requires the unanimous ratification of all members to allow in a new member. In the past months, NATO allies, especially the United States, have piled pressure on Türkiye to give the green light to the Sweden bid.

Türkiye is one of the two NATO countries, along with Hungary, that has yet to approve Sweden's bid to join the trans-Atlantic alliance following Russia's special military operation in Ukraine in early 2022.

The committee's go-ahead followed a call between Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his U.S. counterpart Joe Biden, during which the White House said the U.S. president raised the issue of Sweden's NATO bid.

Erdogan later linked the issue to the U.S. congressional approval of the sale of 40 F-16 fighter jets and modernization kits to Türkiye, calling for "simultaneous" progress on the two issues.

U.S. and Turkish officials met in Washington last week to discuss defense cooperation following the Turkish leader's statement, the Turkish Defense Ministry announced.

"Negotiations are ongoing between Türkiye and its U.S. ally for a compromise," Huseyin Bagci, a scholar and head of the Ankara-based Foreign Policy Institute, said on HaberTurk, a private news channel.

The analyst said that Ankara would finalize Sweden's NATO bid if the U.S. Congress lifts its opposition to the sale of warplanes to Türkiye over foreign policy differences.

Washington and other NATO allies have been at odds with Türkiye over Ankara's increasing cooperation with Russia and its assertive regional policies.

"An agreement would strengthen the alliance at the end," Bagci said.

The committee's approval of Sweden's application clears the way for a full and final vote in the parliament, where Erdogan's ruling alliance has a clear majority.

No timeframe has been set yet for such a plenary session debate. But Turkish lawmakers are not in a hurry to discuss the matter "as long as there is no clear sign from the U.S. Congress to Ankara's request," a parliamentary source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

"The (foreign affairs) committee's vote should be understood as a goodwill gesture that Ankara wants this standoff to ease and move forward," this source added.

Batu Coskun, a foreign policy analyst based in Ankara and a research fellow at Libya's Sadeq Institute, noted that the U.S. Congress is "an entity of its own," and particularly after Erdogan's comments on the escalation in Gaza, there is opposition to the sale of F-16s for the modernization of the Turkish air force.

"It is unlikely that the parliament will have a final vote on Sweden before they see some moves in the U.S. Congress," he told Xinhua.

Erdogan has strongly criticized Israel's military operations in the Palestinian enclave of Gaza Strip, which have so far killed more than 20,000 Palestinians since the outbreak of the conflict between Israel and the Gaza-ruling Hamas on Oct. 7, though the U.S. has repeatedly voiced strong support for Israel.

"I am not convinced that the conditions are ripe currently for this transaction to go through," Coskun said.

Türkiye was expelled in 2019 from the U.S.-led F-35 joint strike fighter program in retaliation for Ankara's decision to acquire advanced air defense systems from Russia. The Turkish Air Force has suffered as a result.

Türkiye approved Finland's NATO application in March, but stalled Sweden's bid over its lax attitude toward anti-Turkish groups on its soil, mainly Kurdish separatists, whom Ankara sees as security threats.

On Monday, Fuat Oktay, a lawmaker from Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party and head of the parliament's foreign affairs committee, hailed Stockholm's efforts to address Ankara's concerns.

"We see that there is a change in policy in Sweden. We see some decisions taken in courts, albeit few," he said in a televised interview.